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'' |image= |series= |production=40840-206 |producer(s)= |story= Eileen Connors, Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky |script=Joe Menosky |director=Mike Vejar |imdbref=tt0708920 |guests=Nancy Bell as Ensign Jetal and Scarlett Pomers as Naomi Wildman |previous_production=Gravity |next_production=Bride of Chaotica! |episode=VGR S05E11 |airdate=20 January 1999 |previous_release=(VGR) Counterpoint (Overall) Prodigal Daughter |next_release=Bride of Chaotica! |story_date(s)=Unknown |group="N"}} (2375) |previous_story= Field of Fire Prodigal Daughter |next_story= Chimera Bride of Chaotica! }} Summary As the Doctor takes holo-images of the crew, he finds evidence of neurosurgery he performed 18 months ago on Kim. However, he doesn't remember it. The Doctor asks Seven of Nine to help him run a self-diagnostic, but later he doesn't recall their conversation. Someone has ordered a deletion in his short-term memory buffer, and holo-images he took around the time of the surgery have been deleted. When Seven restores them, a female ensign they don't recognize is pictured with others in the crew, and one picture is of an alien on their shuttle. Once Seven restores some of his memories, the Doctor recalls pieces of events from the pictures. When he remembers the alien boarded their shuttle and shot Kim and Ensign Jetal, he immediately tells Janeway. She agrees to investigate but tells the Doctor to deactivate his program for the time being. Before he does, he orders the computer to take holo-images of anyone who accesses his files while he is off-line and then reactivate him. Shortly, someone comes into sickbay to delete more files. When the Doctor develops the holo-images taken, it is Janeway. The Doctor confronts Janeway, who tells him that he was damaged during the incident with the alien. It caused a conflict in his program, so she was forced to restrict his access to memories of that period. The Captain refuses to tell him what happened, and now that he is starting to remember, she plans to rewrite his program. After Seven challenges her decision and she has had some time to think about it, Janeway agrees to restore his memories. Scenes from the pictures come to life. The Doctor, Kim and Jetal were on a shuttle mission when an alien ship attacked. Their shuttle was boarded, and the alien shot Kim and Jetal. Once Voyager beamed them to sickbay, the Doctor discovered the alien's energy pulse had remained in their neural membranes, and the only way to save them was to isolate the spinal cord from the brain. There was only time to perform one procedure, and the Doctor chose Kim. After Jetal's funeral, the Doctor began having a breakdown. Now that he has remembered everything, he begins agonizing over the same question of how he could choose one life over another. There is a battle going on between his original programming and what he has become. The crew keeps vigil with him, hoping that eventually he will forgive himself and learn to accept his decision. Errors and Explanations Memory Alpha # The episode is set eighteen months after stardate 50979, which places Jetal's death chronologically between Worst Case Scenario and Scorpion. However, all of The Doctor's memories show Janeway with the new, short haircut, despite the fact that she doesn't get this hairstyle until Year of Hell, nine episodes after "Worst Case Scenario". Paris' haircut is also not in keeping with the suggested timeframe and Kes doesn't appear in any of the memories, even though she was still on the ship and serving as The Doctor's assistant at the time. This could be a side effect of the failing memory suppression. Nit Central # SP on Tuesday, January 16, 2001 - 1:47 pm: Supposedly, Jetal died before Seven joined the ship. If that's the case, then WHERE WAS KES? Kes didn't leave until Seven was already on board. It seems as if the writers have very bad memories. Eight of Nine on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 2:09 pm: Maybe the accident happened whilst Kes was off-duty - hence the blue-shirts we saw helping the Doctor with Kim and Jetal. (Even though that "help" was limited to carrying them into Sickbay and depositing them on biobeds, as I recall!) Of course, that doesn't explain why we see Paris acting as Nurse ... he only started doing so on a nearly full-time basis after Kes' departure. Seniram 11:24, February 28, 2018 (UTC) Paris could have been assisting part time. # Will on Wednesday, January 20, 1999 - 10:09 pm: Why didn't they just create another holographic doctor to save the ensign? The excuse has always been "too big of a power drain", but in this case, they could have done it for the moments it would have taken to save the ensign's life. Even if having a second holographic doctor didn’t overload the power and imaging systems, it could have resulted in both docs wasting time squabbling with each other instead of saving the patients (look how Rimmer in Red Dwarf argued with his duplicate in Me2, not to mention his reaction to Ace!) Notes Category:Episodes Category:Voyager